. >> this came up in 2000 when dick cheney was nominated to be the vice presidential candidate. and he was asked on this program by tim russert about opposing even a resolution to call for mandela's being freed. this is what cheney said then. >> well, certainly i would have loved to have nelson mandela released. i don't know anybody who was sffor keeping him in prison. again, this was a resolution of the american congress, so it wasn't as though if we passed it he was going to be let out of prison. it had another provision. it required the recognition of the anc, which at the time advocated violence in south africa. my recollection is the reagan administration opposed it and i supported the administration. >> tom? >> everything was happening at warp speed. that's one of the things you have to remember. we were going from the pitch cold war to these extraordinary changes that were going on not just behind the soviet union but in the satellite states as well. then in south africa, you had the additional pressure, as reverend sharpton points out, that grew really in a generational